One of the themes of SBM is that modern health care should be based upon solid scientific ground. Interventions should be based on a risk vs benefit analysis using the best available scientific evidence (clinical and basic science).

As an extension of this, the standard of care needs to be a science-based standard. Science is (or at least should be) objective and transparent, and without such standards there is no way to have meaningful quality control. Without the filter of science there is no limit to the nonsense and magical thinking that can flow into the health care system. Increasingly we cannot afford the waste of fanciful and ineffective interventions, and even if limited resources were not an issue – individual patients deserve better.

It is for these reasons that we oppose the attempts by proponents of so-called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to erode or eliminate the science-based standard of care in medicine. Proponents differ mostly on how open they are about this goal, but there is no escaping the reality that at the heart of the very concept of CAM is at least a double standard – one in which the science-based bar for inclusion is lowered for some favored modalities.